As the anniversary of World War II's end comes into view, an 87-year-old woman from Chiba is recalling two rounds of deadly U.S. airstrikes that took the lives of over 1,200 people in the city, noting that she's fortunate to have survived.
"If the attacks had hit slightly different places, I wouldn't be here," Fumiko Takayama, a former schoolteacher, said. The airstrikes burned down about 60% of the city's urban areas.
The first bombing came on the morning of June 10, 1945. A warning siren went off after she finished her breakfast that Sunday. Soon after she started preparations to evacuate to a shelter, the siren changed into an air raid alert.
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